I trust that my narrative does not fatigue you,
mademoiselle?"
"What has it all to do with me, however?" asked the lady.
"You shall hear. Though the heroine comes on late, she brings the house
down when she enters. For a few weeks my patron fulfilled his compact
with tolerable punctuality, but I never failed to notice when we met
that he was a prey to some terrible grief. At last, when he had reduced
the sum to two thousand five hundred and forty-three francs--the
figures will be found graven on my heart--he confided in me, he made me
a strange request; he exclaimed:
"'Tricotrin, I am the most miserable of men!'
"'Poor fellow!' I responded. 'It is, of course, a woman?'
"'Precisely,' he answered. 'I adore her. Her beauty is incomparable,
her fascinations are unparalleled, her intelligence is unique. She has
only one blemish--she is mercenary.'
"'After all, perfection would be tedious,' I said.
"'You are a man of sensibility, you understand!' he cried. 'Her tastes
have been a considerable strain on my resources, and in consequence my
affairs have become involved. Now that I am in difficulties, she is
giving me the chuck. I have implored and besought, I have worn myself
out in appeals, but her firmness is as striking as her other gifts.
There remains only one chance for me--a letter so impassioned that it
shall awake her pity. _I_, as I tell you, am exhausted; I can no
longer plead, no longer phrase, I am a wreck! Will you, as a friend, as
a poet, compose such a letter and give it to me to copy?'
"Could I hesitate? I drove my pen for him till daybreak.
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